Evaluation and Testing in French as a Second Language

The aim of this course is to introduce students to the principles and techniques of evaluation in the second language classroom. Emphasis will be placed on both traditional psychometric testing techniques and competency-based assessment methods. The following topics will be covered: a history of evaluation in language teaching, designing formative and summative evaluations, distinguishing between criterion- and norm-referenced evaluation, using criterion and referenced frameworks, evaluation within communicative and task-based learning approaches, maximizing validity, reliability and wash-back in evaluations, and computer-assisted evaluation.